


Aisle 4: Natural Foods, Hot Men

by FanFictionEngineer



Series: Gaalee Bingo 2020 [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, GaaLee Bingo 2020, Late night snack runs, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:40:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26776753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FanFictionEngineer/pseuds/FanFictionEngineer
Summary: Gaara loved his sister but doing midnight snack runs while she is pregnant is not fun. But perhaps this time it's not so badGaalee 2020 BingoGreen Card 1 - I’M A VEGETARIAN
Relationships: Gaara/Rock Lee
Series: Gaalee Bingo 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1948663
Comments: 12
Kudos: 86
Collections: GaaLee Bingo





	Aisle 4: Natural Foods, Hot Men

**Author's Note:**

> Day two, and another piece posted before my 1pm shift. This time 8hrs. I am happier with his piece but again, I kinda fizzled at the end.
> 
> And funny story, this is actually one of the prompts I had submitted.  
> Its part of the lyrics from "Don't Trust Me" by the 3Oh!3
> 
> Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto. All spelling and tense errors are my own.

Gaara for the fourth time that night cursed Shikamaru and his family genes of the Nara Clan as he went through the hastily scrawled shopping list clenched in his fist. Only someone that was lazy enough to take a job with meteorology because “clouds looked relaxing” could get his sister pregnant on their honeymoon.

Gaara pursed his lips as he tried to read the next item on the list. **Uuojurt**? …..That probably was supposed to be **Yogurt**. For the third time that night, Gaara cursed Kankuro’s absolute atrocious penmanship. The lighting in the 24hr supermarket making the writing look like legit chicken scratch and without his phone, he had no way of confirming with Kankuro on what he had actually written.

A sigh escaped Gaara’s lips as he rubbed at his eyes; exhaustion beginning to weigh down on his shoulders, back, and eyelids. Normally he would be home right now listening to calming music to “help” his insomnia. But instead, he had been voluntold to go on a snack run for his barely pregnant sister as her husband was out of town.

Gaara was honestly happy for Temari, he truly was. Their upbringing hadn’t truly allowed sibling bonding due to their father’s influence. Having a niece or nephew would be weird and challenging and honestly terrifying (Gaara knows nothing about kids, Kankuro knew even less) but……

Gaara could still remind the tears that didn’t seem to stop after Temari came from the doctor’s appointment, confirming her pregnancy. How happy she had been, and how Shikarmura had been over the moon to hear the news. Their old childhood house had felt warm and joyful, something it hadn’t been in years, at least not when their father had still been alive.

But one doesn’t expect to go for a period of massive body changes in bringing new life without being kicked down the stairs a couple of times, like the terrible morning sickness that forced Temari on maturity leave earlier than expected. And what had been even worse than that, was the unbelievable and uncontrollable food cravings. Temari could crave pickles with sour cream one moment to a fully loaded burger the next and it wasn’t like she could hold down such heavy meals.

Gaara was just thankful that Shikaku, Shikamaru’s father, had been kind enough to help supply part of their budget due to Temari not working. But that didn’t mean that shopping got any easier. The pantry was constantly been stocked or had rotating snacks to fulfill every one of Temari’s snack desires without causing her to start heaving.

But of course, Kankuro had to finish off several bags of chips among other snacks that Temari had been saving; which caused Temari to yell at Kankuro for 5 minutes before breaking down into tears, pregnancy hormones in full effect.

Kankuro then had given himself the position of “Temari pregnant sitting”, which lead to Gaara being told aka forced with threats of bodily harm to get more snacks. And so here he was.

Gaara sighed again as he went over the list again, mentally checking off the items he already had in his chart as well as adding several other items like a cactus catalog for himself. It was going to be a long night and it was only almost midnight.

He finally got to the last item and it honestly made him stop in the middle of the aisle.

**VeGgs meat BUNS**

….What the hell was that supposed to be? Gaara rubbed his temples as he felt the beginnings of what could be a migraine form. Having gotten 2hrs each night for the past three days with Temari’s mood swings and Kankuro’s complaining and now this. Gaara was oh so tempted to just abandon the cart and go home. But that would mean he would be returning home empty-handed and he didn’t have the energy to deal with that now.

Taking another look at this list, Gaara decided to take a chance and see if he could find what he was assuming to be vegetarian burger patties. Pushing the shopping cart down the magazine aisle, its three wheels squeaking like a dying mouse as one moved around uselessly, Gaara made his way towards the produce section. Quickly skimming through the shelves of fresh vegetables, fruit and package nuts, Gaara found neither vegetarian patties OR a sales associate to help him. He was beginning to see maybe why this store had poor Yelp reviews.

Spotting strawberries that were on sale, Gaara grabbed two of the cases. Perhaps he could use them as a peace offering to Temari as he threw Kankuro into the lion’s den to prepare and make late-night strawberry shortcake.

Gaara was about to make his way to the self-checkout when something tall and green caught his attention. Turning his head over to glance what he had assumed was a display made him do a double-take.

Dressed in an all dark green tracksuit with orange legwarmers was standing at what he assumed was almost six feet of pure muscle. The man’s board shoulders and biceps could easily be seen through the sweater, which was just large enough to not be too tight but small enough to just hold him snugly. Thighs that looked like they could crush watermelons stood out in pants Gaara felt was a size too small.

Gaara’s eyes flickered over to Mr. Six-foot hands which were large, wrapped in thick bandages and gently holding some mangos. Oh, if only someone could hold him like this stranger held the mangoes.

And now it was time to leave the store and not show his face in public for the next two weeks if he was getting thirsty over a complete stranger that had a nice body.

Gaara groaned as he rubbed his eyes, putting enough pressure so that he could see colors dance behind his eyelids.

“Pardon me?” asked a smooth voice.

Gaara’s head snapped to turn to his right as he blinked owlish up as Mr. Six-foot, who was wearing a look of concern. Mr. Six-foot apparently had large doe-like eyes that were such a deep brown they were almost black, very thick but well maintain eyebrows and pink lips that looked way too soft.

“Sorry,” he said, his voice deep and clear. “But I couldn’t help but notice you were staring at me, did you need to get to the mangoes?”

I’ll go where ever you want me to go man, supplied a dirty little voice in the back of Gaara’s head that sounded way too much like Kankuro after a couple of drinks.

“No, I’m good” Gaara croaked, his voice cracking on the last word. Great, now his voice was cracking like it had back in his senior year of high school.

“You sure?” asked Mr. Six-foot, his brows furrowing. “I was about done and I wouldn’t want to hold you up.”

“It’s…..fine,” Gaara said awkwardly. Wow, he was giving all the wrong social cues, Temari would be ashamed.

“It’s just that I noticed…..”

“‘That you noticed’ what……?” asked Mr. Six-foot, cocking his head to the side, as a confused puppy would.

“The…..the frozen tomato slices in your cart,” Gaara finished lamely as he watched confusion dance over Mr. Six-foot’s face. Yeah, he wasn’t showing his face to the public for the next month if he could help it.

“Frozen tomato slices? ……..Oh!” exclaimed Mr. Six-foot, making Gaara jump. “You mean the frozen veggie burgers. Yeah they look like tomatoes slices so I can see what you were getting at.”

Gaara thanked the god of retail stores that Mr. Six-foot had salvaged this social situation but then he went over the words again.

“You wouldn’t happen to know where I can find those veggie burgers would you?” asked Gaara. “I’m doing some shopping for my sister and it’s on the list but I never bought them before so…”

Mr. Six-foot gave Gaara a megawatt smile, “Of course, it’s in aisle 4 with the other natural foods. I’ll show you.”

“Oh, you don’t have to-“began Gaara, but he was cut off as Mr. Six-foot gave him another megawatt smile and oddly enough, a thumbs up.

“It’s no trouble at all,” reassured Mr. Six-foot, walking over to his cart. “Plus you said you never bought them before. The burgers aren’t for everyone so I’ll be more than happy to give you my input.”

Grabbing his cart, Mr. Six-foot began to speed walk away towards the other end of the store and Gaara had to jog while aggressively pushing his cart which decided it would no longer co-operate, to try and keep up.

Turning down aisle 4, Gaara saw Mr. Six-foot near the end in front of the freezers. Leaving his cart in front of the ‘healthy’ chips, Gaara walked over to stand beside Mr. Six-foot and saw what he had meant. The freezer had the veggie burgers he was looking for, but there were different flavors and some were in different styles.

“Trying to match consumer demand, they have several different varieties of the patties because they change the main vegetable used in. Then they have some with different favors. Does your sister have a preference?” Mr. Six-foot asked, regarding the veggie burgers with a look of lawyer seriousness.

“Probably something spicy as we had lived aboard for some years in the Middle East,” Gaara said slowly, his eyes flickering over the patties. Why was there so many and which one to choose so that he didn’t get a lecture?

“You’re from the Middle East? But you speak Japanese so well!” Mr. Six-foot eyes shone with wonder and Gaara fidgeted uncomfortably under the compliment.

“I lived in the Middle East but my parents are…. **were** Japanese. We were aboard because of our father’s business,” Gaara said with a shrug. It was a topic that wasn’t spoken much of in their household and when a topic would move towards that direction, Gaara and his siblings would fall into a silence before immediately changing the topic.

“‘Were’?” Mr. Six-foot asked, his brows furrowing before his eyes went large. “Oh my god, I am so sorry. I must seem like an insensitive idiot!”

Gaara shrugged his shoulders; he hadn’t had a close relationship with his father due to his work and hadn’t been too disturbed by his death. Looking over, he saw tears beginning to build in Mr. Six-foot eyes so he added hastily, “It's fine, really! My mother died when I was very young and my father died when I was 12 due to work-related accident but even then, we didn’t have the greatest relationship.”

“Oh but now I feel really awful. I probably seem like that jerk that rubs having a happy family into other people’s faces but I not like that at all, I assure you,” babbled Mr. Six-foot, tears actually running down his face. Gaara felt his head spin, apparently, Mr. Six-foot was extremely emotional and probably was the type to sob uncontrollable at every animal death in movies.

“It’s fine really,” Gaara said assuring, his emotional center feeling like it was teetering on the edge of a cliff as Mr. Six-foot rubbed at his face. A crackling page went over the intercome, reminding staff to do the hourly cleanup which lead Gaara to mutter an Arabic curse underneath his breath.

“Sorry, but can we just go over the different types of patties, I really should be getting home to feed the zoo. And also probably my sister is in the process murdering my brother due to hormones,” muttered Gaara, as he rubbed his eyes for the untenth time that night.

“Hormones?” asked Mr. Six-foot. “Is she taking medication?”

“No, she’s pregnant,” Gaara replied bluntly which caused Mr. Six-foot to screech like the annoying parrot his crappy neighbor had.

“That is amazing news. Give your sister my regards. Truly it is wonderful and youthful news that new life has been made,” Mr. Six-foot exclaimed, grabbing Gaara hands with a grip like iron.

It was literally seconds later that Mr. Six-foot mentally caught up with what he had just said as his face turned red to then an interesting almost eggplant purple. Gaara was just in time to see a very tired floor associate walk by and give a WTF towards them.

Mr. Six-foot then spluttered and dropped Gaara hands as if they were molten and Gaara felt a twinge shoot from his fingers to his brain. Mr. Six-foot hands had been rough but they had been extremely warm and gentle.

“The patties,” Gaara supplied hopefully.

“Oh, of course, of course. I didn’t mean to take up so much of your time,” Mr. Six-foot apologized, his face coming back from the purple but still red. “If your sister likes spicy food, then I would recommend this one. It’s pretty good and I find it’s easy to eat when sick.”

Gaara only raised a non-existent eyebrow at Mr. Six-foot as he grabbed a package that looked like it had large slices of carrots but decided against saying anything. Who was he to judge someone for eating veggie burgers when sick when he could go up to four days without sleeping?

“Thanks,” Gaara said, taking the box from Mr. Six-foot, feeling a small jolt when their fingers accidentally brushed against each other.

“This was the last night on my list so now I can head home.”

It was probably a flicker from the buzzing poor quality fluorescent lights overhead that made Gaara think there was a flicker of sadness in Mr. Six-foot eyes.

“Looks like we are both done, guess I’ll see you at the checkout,” Mr. Six-foot said, smiling that perfect smile that dentists would love. Gaara decided not to trust his voice as he gave a nod and walked over to his cart, dropping the box on top of the most likely artificial fruit snacks.

He looked up to see Mr. Six-foot looking at him and was given another smile. Gaara felt a blush cross the ridge of his nose and cheeks as he hurried out of the aisle and towards a newly opened till. Gaara barely remembered dumping his items on the till’s belt, the annoyed cashier’s look, or paying for his purchases; it was a whirl of colors and noise.

He finally seemed to come to his senses when he reached where his brother’s crappy Honda was parked by the door.

“Have a good night,” said a familiar voice as he was trying to shove the bags into the car, Kankuro’s stage sets taking up most of the space in the back seats and truck. Gaara looked over to see Mr. Six-foot holding six bags, three in each hand.

“Yeah, you too. Thanks for your help,” Gaara replied and saw him walk towards the green pathway.

“Don’t you have a car?” he called out.

“Nope,” was the reply back. “I walked; it’s a nice night for it. And I don’t live too far, just past the park. Plus its good exercise!”

Gaara gapped at him. He was planning to walk all the way home with a full grocery? The only park he knew of in the area was an hour away so that was more than a ‘good exercise’. Gaara bit his lips as he saw Mr. Six-foot walk further away. He could try and offer a ride; it would be the nice thing to do.

But instead, what came out of his mouth was, “Want to grab dinner?”

Mr. Six-foot spun around and Gaara could see the blush from here. Gaara probably wasn't much better as his entire face felt hot and tight.

“I’m a vegetarian,” Mr. Six-foot blurted out. Gaara still flustered, completely missed the point that was thrown at him.

“I mean, wait,” Mr. Six-foot had placed his groceries on the ground and was jogging over. His face was red but he wasn’t breathing heavily like Gaara would be if he tried.

“I mean, I’m a vegetarian, and not all the restaurants in the area cater to my specific diet,” Mr. Six-foot explained. “But if you’re serious about dinner, I know a place in downtown that serves great vegan and vegetarian meals.”

“I hate vegetables,” blurted Gaara and his face went a whole new level of hot.

“There’s a coffee shop and a family restaurant nearby that serves some good meals too,” Mr. Six-foot replied, not at all bothered by Gaara’s statement, his face still a nice red. “They are pretty lax about bringing other places food in.”

Gaara must have been silent for too long before Mr. Six-foot wobbled out and began to turn away, “Or not, it's fine really-“

“I would love to,” Gaara said quickly, grabbing Mr. Six-foot biceps and felt his face heat up. God damn were those muscles firm.

Mr. Six-foot gave Gaara this time, a small but shy smile that made his insides squirm. Pulling out a pen and the crumbled beyond belief shopping list, Gaara handed it to Mr. Six-foot and gave a mumbled, “Your number?”

When the list and pen were handed back to Gaara, their fingers lingered before Mr. Six-foot retracted his hands, blushing.

“Text me when you get home so we can plan,” Mr. Six-foot called over his shoulder as he jogged back to his groceries.

Gaara stood there as he watched his retreating back until he didn’t see him anymore, feeling like he was floating on cloud nine. Looking at the list, he saw a hastily scrawled but much more legible written phone number with a heart and a name: Rock Lee.

 _He’s going to rock your world alright_ , cackled a voice in his head that sounded like Temari when she caught her brothers doing something that was blackmail worthy. Gaara drove home in a daze and didn’t even register the look of the absolute relief on Kankuro’s face as he all but rain to Temari’s room with the desired snack.

Crawling into bed, Gaara texted the Mr. Six-foot…..Rock Lee’s number and sent the message: _**Im home, when do u want dinner? name’s Gaara**_

The reply was received seconds later, perfect punctuation and everything: **Hello Gaara, your name is as pretty are you. And I’m free this weekend. You?**

_**Sure. Sounds like a date** _

His phone vibrated as he was sent several emoji of smiling faces. Gaara himself smiled as he got comfortable in bed as he began texting Lee more.

Perhaps he should get a gift for Shikamaru for getting Temari pregnant when he comes back from his work trip? Like a box of those extreme flame thrower veggie burgers, that man cannot hold his spice.

**Author's Note:**

> Leave a kudo if you enjoy. Leave a comment if you have something to say.  
> Bookmark if you think it's good enough to read ;D


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